think the key is having a lot of patience and participation >> (clapping.) and last but not least our high school teacher of the year michael spur ran. >> i'm in a certain stage bending by the time i am done teaching i follow them through high school and some beyond and proud of what they've done and being a part of that it is important it makes us a successful teacher is one that cares about the outcomes for students and helping them overcame the difficulties in their lives and being able to set them open a path they might not have been on. >> my congratulations

(clapping) congratulations and thank you all families and community for coming harry truman says the buck stops here and think they know what it means running cities, establishing budget and setting priorities and we'll make sure be hear about the priorities today. issues arond innovation funding partnership and maybe we'll get into hot topics like dog walking. i introduce our mayors panel i would like to thank landscape structures for thore support of the greater and greening conference and todays forum. they are a

leader in play ground manufacturing lands scape [inaudible] enhance childrens lives by foster and creating inspiring play experiences while haun aing the environment. please welcome pat [inaudible] prez dntd of landscape structures >> thank you mark. ee are proceed to bree a silver sponsor of greater and greener 2015. as this conference brought together leader professionals, advocates, funders and inovateers to discuss something near and dear to our hearts at landscape structures, parks, green spaces and communities. as the president i had the tubt to meet with many professionals arounds the cuntsry and learn about what they are doing to create great communities. i'm

happy to report that like you using parks and playgrounds to improve the quality of life fl their stit phrns. as champions for park and play ground these spaces help foret economy, public helths and environmental sustainability. by working with all of you we have seen how building parks and playgrounds trullly builds community. individuals from all waurks of life, all ages, all abilities and all culture come together in parks for exercise and recreation, slbrasion, community meet squgz more. farks and play ground are a medium for friends, families and neighbors to meet and connect. with creative design incorporated into your park environments, that connection goes even further with the community. well thout out design can turn parks and playgrounds into a space that

teaches viz iters btd the historyf othe community, sends them on a seek and find adadventurer for [inaudible] or engages kids imagination with a one of a kind play pm ground design. your meaning m design deliver a sonesf pride. i look for wrrd wrd from hearing about this group and learning about the opportunities for todays urban parks. even more i'm excited to weg welcome to my home state of minnesota for greater and greener. while you rib the twin cities check out the parks and playgrounds throughout the metro and connect with us to see the corporate head quarters just west of minneapolis in del naul. thank you. >> they think -thank you pat.

it is now my pressure to introduce my boss. if you wanted a resume to be a can do mayor, you can't beat the one that we have. mayor lee graduated from the university of california [inaudible] law school. he ran asian law caucus and became executive director of human rights followed by [inaudible] then director of public works. that culminated in 200 fifen by becoming the city [inaudible] the board of supervisors in san francisco uninanimously appointed edas the acting mayor and recognizing a opportunity to get a lot of good things done, he ran again for election

and won. it is my pleasure to introduce to you a park chaimpian, mayor ed lee. >> thank you very much for that introduction. good afternoon everyone. welcome to to the 3 time world series champion and county of the city of san francisco. i'm not [inaudible] mayors at all. i want to welcome you to san francisco and to celebrate the greater and greener parks and open space conference here. it is a wond rbful time in our city and i love these conferences where international, regional and national intelligence and innovation and people getting things done all over our cities and all over parts of the cuntsry come together and

evaluate how we can exchange ideas and innovation and find out the latest and gratis. who is doing what in the public and prives sector and all of this is happening in our city. i want to give a special welcome to our 3 additional mayors, mayor price, mayor white and mayor murray. the mayor of my city i grew up in. i just came from celebrating my mothers 90th birtday in seattle and it is wonderful to see their parks. growing as all these cities grow. this is a great time to have this conference in san francisco. i'm proud to host it here and proud of the reck and park and commission and parks alliance and trust for public lands and all our private partners working

together with us to not only expand, to maintain, to reutilize and refresh open spaces in our city. just this weekend as you were here opening we had sunday streets over in the bay view and it is exciting to always find out how people are celebrating those sunday streets. i know the other cities do that as well and it isn't just enough for us as a city to have the parks that we do have. we have to kick over streets once in a while and make sure those streets exhibit the kind of friendliness for at least a sunday to imagine and have our kids and families imagine how it is to play in open spaces without the challenges of the congested traffic. in our city we are growing rapidly. you see a lot of cranes as you come in. there is a bit of congestion on the streets, just a bit. we are growing and we

are growing at a pace where our unemployment rate is 3.8 percent. some of the analyst believe that is close to 0. not sure i believe that, but i do say that causes other challenges. our city and that is quhie i spend a lot of my time trying to build a goal of 30 thousand new homes by 2020. we are making sure we do that with the public private partnership. we are putting on a housing bound for san francisco to the tune of 250 million dollars. in a city like san francisco that might not be a lot of money, so we'll comp lment with that that with a private venture with the foundations fulaenthpist and bank to fry to mac with private funds that can accelerate the building of the housing. park

squz open space are no different infrastructure necessities of the city than the transportation and businesses, than our water sewer systems, all of this works to make our city success flt. i understood that through the many goals i had that have been able to play insuch, but i know full well that if you got a good infrastructure and have parks that center och that you will take care of a lot of families and with our parks it isn't just the physical aspeblths. as challenge as it may be, it is how you program and engage the parents and families and school districts and neighbors into making sure those park represents activities that could also take care of a lot of health challenges as well as be link tooz education, links to support sw after school programs, links to senior

programs that are upmost necessity for a growing city. it is also critical to our young people. today san francisco boasts over 220 parks. we have 180 playgrounds. 6 golf courses. i played all 6 of them 3 times. 38 community gardens and growing. i think not unlike all the other cities, our urban parks and urban gardens are growing at a rapid pace. people want to be able to grow their own food and flowers and we have a lot of philanthopy that identifies that as the next great space if you will for investment. i don't know if you knew this, we are only 49 square miles, 15 percent of our city is open space. they

of course reflect such iconic names as golden gate park, chrisy field and if tonight you visit quoit tower it will be laden in orange for a good reason. 98 percent of our city lives within a 10 minute walk of a park. 98 percent. we are going to get to 100 percent. mark, we are get toog 100 percent and commit to that in a very short space. we have over 370 million dollars in parks bond to spend just this year we'll spend 15 and a half million dollars to go toward rehabilitation and refreshing 6 play grounds in san francisco. it is true that the private, the fill philanthropic, the city government, the state and the regional partnerships are

very strong in our parks and that collaboration is absolute late essential not just for the maintenance of the parks and refreshing, it is for the engagement of how these parks will look and are maintained. i was most excited when recently in the middle of the most impover rshed city called the tin loin area, we have a 9.3 million dollar investment just opened, reopened [inaudible] park with a strong strong collaboration. in fact, i think it was a year and a hamp of planning and meetings with neighborhood organizations, people use the parks, parents, kids, public and preeuvt school parents and their chaern engage with recreation and park and supervisors over the quality of the park and what it met. what it meant is 9.3 million

investment and the sources are the state parks that invested and our own recreation park bonds, it was grants if the fill philanthropic foundation all amassed in this investment and it come out with one of the best designed urban parks where i you have the 25/7 club house, a basket ball court and home grown flowers and reuse of water treatment and artificial tougher so more and more use can be had. thats a great investment and invite you to take a look at that park as our most reebt example of this collaboration. these kinds of investments in the park help the city become more successful, more inviting and more inclusive. parks are just

like transportation and just like education, they are the great equalizers in citys that sometimes become more reflection of inequality. our parks have become at the center, the effort to equalize things and with the philanthropy we are proposing along with city investments, we can fake care of a lot of low income families to participate more and more in the great programs. i will have more to say to that when we interact with the panel. it is now my pleasure to introduce from the great state of texas, a mayor in a very fast growing city, the city of fort worth, she is cochair of mayors and parks coalition and great parks champion herself, let me introduce betsy price, the new champion of parks. my question

for her is, is it fort worth or fit worth texas? >> it is fit worth texas >> mayor price >> thank you. first off i think we ought to take a minute and thank mayor lee and his team for this conference. they have done a incredible job. we have tr opportunity to get out and walk and i will tell you what, fort worth is very flat compared to san francisco. i'm a cyclist lie nature and someone said you are a biker and i said i'm a psycholer. the difference is i [inaudible] i would haet to cycle here. the hills we call challenging are like that. it is great to be with you, fort wort is a rapidly growing city with a

population 792 thousand, 17 largest in the nation and with that like your cities we face major challenges. we add 65 new residence a day mpt. we must be doing something right. the anticipate is be a million people and still growing. fort worth is fortunate in the parks program. we are a city of 352 square mails 550 miles of [inaudible] our population has druimateically changed just dh last 4 to 5 year jz that has changed how we look at our parks. our population has gone much lunger. we are a average age of 35. we were voted the best place in the nation for union millenniums to find a job, but also have a huge [inaudible] of senior citizens

[inaudible] we have to figure thew program what they need and i'm 1 of them. how do we engage them and get there? for us it is the city, parks are a incredible assetd because they bring that extra tool, engaged cities are more resilient, stronger and vibrant and more out spoken, which as a elected official is what you want. for economic development the ability >> student increase our helths of the community is directly tied to the parks programs. he mentioned it was 4 or 3 and a half years ago we started a program called fit worth to engage our kids because we were so worried about the growing epidemic of obesity, but to engage their families too. they have to track their eating, their exercise, water intake and sleep and they have to get their parents to commit.

the first year alone 25 thousand children joined us in the effort and in 2 and a half year, we had a 4 percent reduction in obesity rate in the children who are participating. our parks are a big piece of that. they serve as a easy way for us to get people engaged. we are in the midolaffbillion dollar river project to reclaim our river and open it up. last year we started a issue called rocking the river and the trinity use today be pretty much looked like a draij ditch. it is a southern river, a very warm river, not like yours. people get in it and they float on the tubes and last year alone 300 thousand people joined us on the river for day of exercise, a day of music and chance to get out. we passed a 290

million dollar bonds election recently and started out talking bts our bond elections because of our growth and who we are and rapid growth mpth we need transportation infrastructure and started out with very little in parks, about 12 million in parks and our citizens told us as we went to sell them they wanted that change. we are willing to sacrifice transportation to have more park frz the family, particularly inner city parks rchlt we reduced trarnz portation and they passed the proposition for parks by 79.9 percent for 40 million dollars in parks. if citizens are not tells us they want parks, i don't know what that is and fort worth is in a midst of 5 year blue zone program which

will engage all the citizens in improving the health. we are looking forward to what we can do. we levologs the public, private partnership to make dwrour dollars go firth aer. thank you for being interesting in the health of your citizens and the heth of the nation as a whole. >> hang on one minute here and i'll get the resume out for the next speaker and introduce him. i had a chance to meet mayor murray from seattle before the show started. he was in the state legislator for a long time and i asked him how does he like being mayor and he lit up. i said you that means

you are going to run for the next time and he said the next time and next time. he is having a good time and i'll tell you a little about him. he is the mayor of seattle sinss jan 2013 and served in the washington state senate from 2007-13 and before that 11 years in the washington state out of representative. he has bichb around a while and has inovateive programs he starlted to institute. we are interested in hearing how seattle approached all this. mayor murray >> it is good to be here from the land of sea hawks in san francisco. mayor lee started it. it was just after the election just over 15 months

ago we had a issue we had to face in our family. i'm married to someone who works for the seateal parks department and the question came up whether we can biltd parks in seattle and my husband said it will be my career before yours. i want to introduce someone who is a? credible committed person to the public parks and is the first gentlemen of the sitdy of seattle, michael [inaudible] where are you michael? on a serious note, mayor lee thank you for the hospitality and the city of san francisco. without the history of this city i wouldn't be here today. seattle parks created by the mome ked in 203 to do 2 things.

to represent the bulf natural environment of the city. the reason those born there stay and the reason people move there. secondly, as mayor lee referenced, these are the great places of democracy. these are the places where people come together. as a kid growing up in a namly of 7 kids in a working class neighborhood west seattle was then working class neighborhood, you don't go on haveication when you come from a familyf 7 kids, you don't go to restaurant with that many kids, so parks become the opportunity to experience the out doors. it was [inaudible] and lincoln park and [inaudible] where my sibling and i paid and had picnic jz today that is more important in every. today as we take approach to the park systematize is those valis we try to move for wrbd on. wree the fastest grouding city in

america [inaudible] expedia announced last week they are moving to down town seat al. this is a incredibility period as we grow, but it made the issue of inequality greater than before ask that is where the m and community centers come in. not just fl the union people, but for the seniors. we have 465 parks, 26 community centers and in a city-we are talking about the size of the [inaudible] in a city of 89 square miles, 564 acres of parks and open space. we faced a challenge. if you are from the west coast you understand this, we had a series of state wide nish tchbs thatd degraded our ability to dinns city service because of a the tax structure [inaudible] responded to that with the series of lev squgz the citizens voted for

those. fwroget maintenance and expansion of open space in the sitdy. the problem with levies is they are only 6 years and not on going sourceoffs rev new. what we were facing is a growing system where the maintenance and programming was significantly behind. we had about 300 million dollars in maintenance back log over 300 project throughout the park system when i became mayor. there was a discussion in the city how to approach this. one of the ways to do it was to continue to do levies every 6 years and that would have been easy and bleechb it would have passed. the other is create a permanent revenue source. in a city like seattle the internal politics don't look like the nation t. is the left [inaudible] and in this case it was part of the population spushs how we spend the money if they don't approve it every 6 year. we won the argument

that we can have citizen participation and establish a steady revenue stream so we can plan for parks over the long run. routh now 50 million dollars every year forever and unless things change and the voters do away with it, will come to the seattle park systems allowing to establishize programming for the community centers and inmaintenance and activation of the parks and allowing us to into into innovative program with the private sector. it is a great thing. it xhss back to isatey growing very rapidly and economy expanding rapidly. but a city that has to get growth roit thmpt city of seattle not only said yes to parks, they

also said yes to new taxes for the largest increase in bus service and for the first time in seateal new taxes to start prek for 3 and 4 year oltds, so i think my city is getting it. thank you. >> i'm looking forward to the q and a and the discussion because i think funding and how we do it is probably one of the most issues facing cities and parks in particular. now let me introduce to you nob nab white, he is a attorney in his native greenville sourth carolina that served as the cities 34 and current mayor since december 11, 1995, a longer tinnier than any mayor of greenville. from 1983 to 199thry the at large member of

the greenville city counsel and goes up for reelection this november and assume he'll win it again, mayor max white >> thank you very much. i didn't know we were getting into my political history. it is great to be here and share something that is very exciting if anyone doubts about the transformative power of park squz what it can do for the city. greenville south care rolina to get your geography is located half way between atlanta and charlotte. the economy changes thoferb last couple years and began a test och transforming or reinventing the local economy and also reinventing down town and after about 15 or 20 years we have

done that. we have a great down town t is walkable and pedestrian friendly and all the eminties of mixed use, lots of retail. all the things you want. about 8s or 9 years go about doing all that wasn't enough, there is still something missing. you want a city to be a place that you have a heart for. it is authentic and unique and a place people may want to go back again and again and what may that be? parks and green space. we had a asset that was over looked, we have a river called the rete river going through the city and have something remarkable-don't think the picture is up there-we have a water fall. believe it or not a 40 foot natural water fall that is only a few yards from main street thmpt story goes like this, the river